אחרי מות–קדושים תשפ״ה

00:09 Good evening. Welcome to tonight's Shiur. Tonight is, uh, Thursday going into Shabbos Parshas Acharei Kotkim. Today's Shiur is dedicated in memory of Yirmiyahu Israel, otherwise known as Jeremy Teller, alav hashalom. Ben Rivkah bat Yossef Chaim. And this is by his, uh, brother and brother-in-law, Mr. Jonathan Teller and Mrs. Rabin and families. And also for in memory of a young l-woman who just pass-- a young lady who passed away this week suddenly. A great niece of mine, Chaim Mushka, bas, uh, alav hashalom, daughter of Reuven and Rochel Karbarczyk. Uh, I'd just like to say how, how baruch dayan emes that both Mrs. Teller and Mrs. Rabin had been involved with, with the Nefteris and helping her, supporting her over the last few years. And so, um, thank you for, for that, for the nedavas of doing so. Okay. So I was requested to, to make a Siman Rambam, and we've done that in the past. And I believe some of the people who are joining us are, uh, in relation to the Siman Rambam. And so we are finishing now today, we're finishing Sefer, Sefer Zmanim, uh, which finishes off with the dinner of Hanukkah. And we begin the first Perek. We do the first Perek of Sefer Nosim. So I'm gonna read the first-- the last Halacha of Hilchos Hanukkah. So before it said the la-- the penultimate Halacha was, if you have a choice, you have X amount of money in your pocket, it's either gonna be spent on Hanukkah candles, oil, whatever, or

02:26 it's gonna be spent on wine for Kiddush. So then the guidance is to use it for Ner Hanukkah rather than for Kiddush because of the virtue of Pirsumei Nisah, publicity of the miracle. And yet, it comes the next Halacha, which is the last Halacha, if the dilemma is whether to spend the money on candles for Shabbos or candles for Hanukkah, for that matter, if you have, uh, throughout the year dilemma, candles for Shabbos or c-- or wine for Kiddush, the candles for Shabbos take precedence because of the importance of harmony in the house. 'Cause after all, the Ner Shabbos are... One of the primary reasons for Ner Shabbos is that if it were dark in the house, so you'd stumble over, be it so, you stumble over stuff in the way, and that would ca-cause disharmony in the home. And the concept of harmony in the home is so important. We see in the, in the story of the Soyto that Hashem's name is erased, which is a disgrace, obviously, to Hashem, to the respect of Hashem. And you see, Hashem is ready to have his name disgraced. To bring harmony between husband and wife. Therefore, the idea of Shalom Bayis takes precedence. And the Rebbe points out is the, the, uh, in-interesting thing here. This is not... Here we are saying that Ner, Ner Shabbos is more important than Ner Hanukkah. So this really should have been in, in Hilchos Shabbos, when he talks about Ner, Ner Shabbos. And yet to s-- and I--

04:12 if I'm not mistaken, the Rebbe's point was that when you, in a sense, uh, override Ner Hanukkah, it's not that Ner Hanukkah is degraded. On the contrary, Ner Hanukkah is happy to capitulate because of the higher value of Shalom Bayis. So that brings out actually a quality in Ner Hanukkah that it gives of itself in order to ensure, uh, Shalom Bayis. Now, Rambam finishes off, as he very often finishes off this forum, with a Pasuk, with a Drash. Uh, God has shown great is the harmony, peace. The entire Torah was given in order to bring peace into the world. The world could be a divisive place, and Torah is there to bring harmony into this world. We have a Pasuk in Mishlei. The paths of Torah are pleasant, and its alleys, as it were paths, lead to, uh, peace. Now, before that, that's where Rambam finishes, and, uh, then he also lists the, the, the Hilchos. Now, I just want to share with you before going into the beginning of Sefer Nosim, I wanna share with you something which I saw about, uh, as I was doing today's Rambam. So the second last Perek is, uh, although it's about Hanukkah, is very much about Hallel. And he talks about the days where we say whole Hallel and the days where we say, uh, only part of Hallel. So now-- So, uh, in this Sefer, there's an early siddur called Siddur HaAvodah Umayda Derech. Which I got from Rabbeinu Tam. The Yerushal that, that say, that's

06:15 it. So it has there a quote from Rav Shamshon of Ostropol. And Rav Shamshon of Ostropol, it was, I believe, a generation or, or two before the... Yeah, he was before the Baal Shem Tov. And you see he mentions Hashem Yimaleh M'lacho. He was murdered by the Cossacks, uh, in the, uh, Tach Vetat. And so he, he had a brilliant, brilliant, uh, Mekubal. And in many Haggadahs, they have an in- a, a, a passage at the, about Pesach from the beginning of the Haggadah. Uh, so many people have a minute to go through it every year, which actually I did it this year. Just I don't do it every year, but I was... So the Rav Shamshon of Ostropol, so he points out that there is a symbol of Bevetach. When do you say ha- full Hallel? Well, you got, um, Bevetach is the two days of Pesach. First, two days of Pesach. Two days of Shavuot. The nine days of Sukkot, including Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, and the eight days of Hanukkah. So that's a good slide. So we have Bevetach, which amounts to twenty-one days where... Of full Hallel. See, he says, "Look at the passage. "שניים שניים בו אל נוח." "שניים שניים" is two and two. "בו" is gematria nine. "אל נוח" is the same gematria as Hanukkah. So in the passage in Bereshit, so in, in, in, in Noach. "שניים שניים בו אל נוח," we have a remez to the, the, the number Bevetach, which is, uh, the days of

08:02 saying full Hallel, uh, in Eretz Yisrael. In the Al Terebah Siddur, in some of the editions it has the Simon HaBevetach. That was actually... That's not in the original Al Terebah Siddur. Doesn't detract from the, uh, you know, the, the being a message. So all right. So that is the... So we have said the Siyum of Hilchot Hanukkah, the Siyum of Sefer Zmanim, and the vort on Hilchot Hanukkah about Hallel. And then let's go on to the, the opening of Sefer Nosim. So all right, we've got Sefer Nosim, Sefer Levi, and he lists the five sections. Ishut, Gerushin, Yibum, Chalitzah, et cetera. And he talks about before Matan Torah how marriage would work. A person would meet a woman... A man would meet a woman, and if they agree, they would move in together, and that would be how they got married. And then later, Hashem gives the mitzvah of Kiddushin and Erusin, et cetera. I wanna foc-focus on the pasuk, which I, I did not see anyone... I did, I did not look too, too hard. The Rambam, every Sefer starts off with a pasuk. To... And this time it's a pasuk, and I think a lot of them are psukim from Mishlei. Torah Shebechal, the teaching of the wi-wise. Makor Chaim is a source of life. Lasur mimeichsheh maves, to keep away from, um, traps, death traps. What's that got to do with Sefer Nosim? And so, the Yesh Lomar, that you have... Going back, what was the last thing? This is the

09:57 kesher of the previous, the end of Sefer Zmanim and the beginning of Sefer Nosim. The importance of Shalom Bayit. And how Hashem is ready to s-to te- have His name disgraced in order to bring about Shalom Bayit. Now, how you have in the Gemara, מוצא מוצא או אומרים מוצא מוצא ומוצא מוצא. The derech of the Eibish the way He created us is that the man and a woman, th-that-that's, again, a man gets married to a woman. They live together, and that's the way, uh... That's the derech halaret. That can be a success story. It can be fraught with frustration, and yet they stay... They may stay together. Today, people... Today, people are much more into dispensing with things which they don't want. But they could stay together for various reasons. Could be economic or, or for children, et cetera. And yet, there's a constant struggle. And so, um, uh, there's a loshon מוצא מכה מות. To say that sometimes a person can feel he's stuck in a marriage, and it's... And he feels terrible. He just can't get out of it. And yet, on the other side, it can be such, such a gan eden. I once heard a very nice thing. Why is it that you don't say Ashechianu when you get married? And the answer is, this which I heard, that actually it doesn't... Ashechianu is when you have a new fruit, and then it... Or a new garment, and then it starts wearing out. Marriage should get better and better. And therefore,

11:34 when you say Ashechianu now, it's gonna be... It's gonna get improved. This is just, this is just the beginning. So this is what the Rambam has, this pasuk from Mishlei, which you look at the Befoarshom. It doesn't say, doesn't say the significance of this pasuk. Anything to do with marriage. But Torah Shebechal, Makor Chaim. That you have a... If you learn, they have wisdom. This is a source for life. Lasur mimeichsheh maves, to keep awa-away from stumbling blocks will bring, bring on death. So y-you have a choice to get married, and it can... With, with Torah and with wisdom. Uh, with Makor Chaim, that's... Then it's a marri- It's a, it's a Makor Chaim, and that keeps you away from the opposite, which can be a, a, a lifetime of suffering, which is, uh- For lack of Toras, Toras Chocham mekerchaim. So those are my comments about the opening, um, the opening pasuk of the Rambam. You see clear the smichas to the end of Sefer Zmanim. And let's go on to then... I do have to do Hashlamah. And that is because last time I was roped in to do, uh, a Siyum Rambam, it was the end of Sefer HaMa'adah and the beginning of Sefer, um, Sefer Ahavah. And towards the beginning was Hilchos Kirshma. And I, at that time, quoted a, an explanation from Rabbi, um, Wolberg from Manchester, um, where he picked up on an interesting diyuk here. And I'm gonna share with you the diyuk, and then someone g-um, came

13:08 back and kind of said, "No, that, that's not the way it works," and they said... he gave a much, I think, a better biar. So now you have here the Rambam talking about, which is a Mishnah in Berachot, that when you read the Shema, you should be articulate. And if you weren't articulate, you're a yutz. What does it mean to be yadaklik, to be articulate? You should be careful not to soften the strong, like in a Pe and Fe. So where it's a, uh, if it's a, a Pe, don't read it a Fe. Velo yaazik harof, and do not harden the soft. Velo yadiyach hanod, velo yonid hanach. So he uses the word nod, where in contemporary dikduk we use the word no. No and nod, it means both of them moving. You've got the Sheva, which is a moving Sheva, which is audible, and then you have the silent Sheva. Uh, so he says, "Do not distort them." Where it's meant to be ve, he said ve. Where it's meant mm, so they leave it mm. So now, the fichach. So rechliten rebbe ben hadveikim. Therefore, you need to leave a space between, uh, words which have got identical, uh, letters, like avademmehero. So it... The way it appears from Rambam is that the reason why you should not, why you have to make a pause between avademmehero is so that, that the mehero should have the meh sound because it has to be a sheva nah. Otherwise, you'll lose out on the sheva

14:32 nah, sheva nach. Now, that's contrary to the pashut pshat because normally you say why shouldn't you have... Why, why, sorry, why is it important to pause between avadem and mehero? Otherwise, you're going to have one mem for two, two words, so you're gonna be losing one of the mems. And so this was the, uh, this was Rabbi Wolberg's observation. And, uh, Rabbi Zilberstein, who is a shliach in Ithaca, upstate New York, a bit older than me, um, brilliant Talmud Chacham, sits in some university in Ithaca and sits to learn. He's, he's got some kind of college, uh, whatever, course in Talmud. Brilliant, um, Talmud Chacham. He, he commented, "That's not the pshat in Rambam." And he says, "You look in the Ra- in the Rambam in Pirkei Shamonim in, in Masechet Berachot." And incidentally, I learned Mishnayot Sefer Hakedusah. I had just learnt that Perek in Mishnayot, and I'm... I was learning with Rambam. And it says there, on this Mishnah which says about, uh, being articulate, it says, "Don't swallow up one letter with the other." Uh, for example, avademmehero. So what's his worry? Velo yavlio is bechaverta. Do not, don't lose letters by not making a pause. So you're able to say, "What's the pshat in Rambam?" So he says the following. He says, "The pshat is that Rambam is saying you cut... You sh- you have to make sure of no and not, not sheva nah, sheva nach. If you didn't need to worry about this, then you could have solved this

16:08 problem by saying the following: vavademmehero. You could have done vavademme. They could have made the mem of vavadem into a sheva nah. Vavademmehero. Then you've solved your problem. But since you cannot, since you cannot make vavademme, like you can't say echad. You have to say echad, not echad. And so vavadem, in other words, vavademme. Therefore, you have then the dilemma. If you're gonna say vavadem and then say mehero, uh, then you've got here the overlap of the same letter. Uh, and therefore, si-since you can't solve it by doing a sheva nah, therefore you have to solve it by giving a pause." That was Reb Eli Zilberstein's, um, hesber, and my privilege to be maybe ge'ulah l'olam to say a dover b'Shema. Let's move on. So these are comments on the Rambam. Now, we do try to keep to Halakha stuff. Um, that's, that's what's the, the official mandate here. So last week, we were discussing about this couple, uh, this, uh, question about... Last week, it was a question of, um, someone who has people come to him and he serves them, um, non-mevashel wine, whether he could use the same wine again, well, obviously the, the leftovers, to give it for the similar type of people who are coming next week and so on. So since it's non-mevashel wine, they've touched it. Can he give-- And they're not Shomer Shabbos. Can he give it to the next...? And we discussed this, how there are poskim who are lenient about this, and they say a

17:50 mechal Shabbos may be mechal Shabbos, so that's terrible. But that doesn't mean that he's over Daveid DeZorah. Therefore, the wine remains kosher. Generally, though, we don't take that, that approach. So Vashgacha Protis, this Friday, this past Friday, I got a call from a shlucha somewhere in the Greek islands. Um, zero, zero one eight four. And, uh- Her question was the following, that she had been contacted by a couple who were touring, and they were in another island. And they called her up on Friday morning, um, "Chabad, yes. Could you tell us where we can get some kosher wine for Kiddush for tonight?" Now, she knows this couple, that they are beautiful people. Um, they are Masorti, as they say, but they're not Shomer Shabbos at all. And so she knows that in that island, there's some boutique where you might be able to get some wine from Hermon, but it's not Yayin Mevushal. So she's asking, "Is there any mileage in me telling them to go to this and this shop and buy Yayin, wine, which is not Mevushal, and then they can take it home, and they'll be using-- making Kiddush on, on wine," which they shouldn't, you know, shouldn't be touching. That was the question. And I-actually, in the circumstances, I felt better just tell them to make Kiddush on bread. Uh, they have bread, do that. Now, um, so I wanna share with you, I mentioned in passing last week, but this is from the Sefer Shulchan Aruch. Uh, this is the

19:31 correspondence of the Rebbe in relation to the problem of ships, trav-- Israeli ships, Jewish-owned ships traveling on Shabbos. So in the '50s, that was a big issue, uh, because they were traveling nonstop from Haifa to, to New York, and the Rebbe saw the fact that they don't stop for Shabbos as a, uh, great Chilul Hashem, Chilul Shabbos in a very public way. So someone had written to the Rebbe and saying how he had been on the ship, and they had made Shabbos, and they made Kiddush, and it was a really beautiful, uh, e-experience. The Rebbe writes to him, "I mean, it's all beautiful, but how does that allow Chilul Shabbos in a public way? Furthermore, you made Kiddush on wine which belongs to the, to the, uh, company, and this is Chilul Shabbos company, therefore, the wine is also." And then he says, "Then if you have wine which is also, then there's a question whether you're allowed to make a, make a Bracha on it. There's a question whether we can make a Bracha on it, a Dvar Awesome. And then if it's you're not allowed to make a Bracha, so then it's a Bracha of Batala." Then he says, "Also, your Kiddush isn't valid, and so then you ate without Kiddush." So the Rebbe kind of lays it on heavy for the fact that he used wine, which is from Mechalel Shabbos. Now, in the notes here, there's a reference to Sechamed. So if you want to look up in the Sechamed in

20:54 volume three, page Tov Kofe, there he brings from the Bes Yosef in Siman Kuf Kuf Giml, if I'm not mistaken, in the Shema Rashbo, who takes the view that a Mechalel Shabbos does violate the wine, that you're not allowed to use it. Then, then he brings there are others who are more lenient. Generally, our Minhag is that we are careful about it, as we discussed last week. Okay, let's move on, and that is someone asked me this past week, why is it not seen in Chabad about adding water to wine? So let's go through this, um, question. Where's the question from? And just I wanna clarify, if you're looking for the Dinim of Kos shel Bracha, don't look in Birchas Kiddush. The place to look for it is in the Dinim of Birchas Hamozon because the default Kos shel Bracha is the cup used for benching. So this is in Siman Kuf Pe Gimel. We'll first look at the Mechaber, and then we'll look at the Alter Rebbe. So we have here that the... writes in Shulchan Aruch that you should put the... There's ten conditions. There's ten, yeah, ten conditions for Kos shel Bracha, ten requirements, perhaps. And one of them is Chai. Chai can mean raw, neat. So you should pour the wine neat into the cup, and then you come to the second Bracha, Birchat Ha'Arets, which is Lo DeLo Cha, then Mozzui, then you add a bit of water, and somehow that, that was the Minhag which is written in Shulchan

22:28 Aruch. Then you have in the Rashi writing is from the Rama, and he says, "If..." So there are those who say, "If the wine is not strong wine, then you do not, do not need to dilute it." So the European Ashkenazi Minhag is not to do this topping up with water, possibly because our wine isn't so strong. Now, this similar thing the Alter Rebbe writes, not much different. Um, Mitzvah Mamuch Shehe Mozug. And then he writes, "If the wine isn't strong, you don't need to dilute it." However, there are those who do add water to the wine, Al Pi Kabbalah. So that is the background to many Polish Hasidim are very particular about this. They'll have a little... They'll add three drops of water to the wine to be Mekayem this Inyan by Kiddush, et cetera. I don't know about Kos shel Bracha for benching. I'm talking about by Kiddush. They'll add a little bit of, of water to be, to be Mekayem the Inyan of, of Meziga shel Kos. Um, but, um, where, where we're coming from is that we live in Europe, and our wines are not so strong, and therefore, there's no Inyan of Meziga shel Kos. Why don't we worry about the Kabbalah thing? I'm not sure why. Possibly Bechalal in Russia. I don't know how much it was... how popular it was to make Kiddush on wine altogether because of the poverty and the availability. It may have been quite rare for people to make Kiddush on wine. I'm, I'm

24:03 just speculating. Uh, I'd like to also share with you that my father, Alav Ha-Shalom, asked Reb Zalman Shimon Dworkin. He asked him about making Kiddush on grape juice. So Reb Zalman Shimon's take on it was that grape juice is good for Meziga shel Kos, for topping up. Instead, like you should blend, the wine shouldn't be so strong. As the Alter Rebbe, you see the Alter Rebbe's Lashon. Um, Why is the Inyan of diluting the wine? It should be pleasant. So sometimes wine has got a harsh taste to it. You add a bit of something softer, a bit of water or grape juice, it makes it that much more palatable. So Reb Zalman Shimon said to my father that, uh, the use of grape juice is good for Meziga shel Kos. So that's why my father was doing that, what I've been doing all these years, uh, adding a little bit of grape just to balance it. It shouldn't be so strong. Um, more, more pleasant. Of course, I'm not dismissing there are people who cannot handle alcohol, and therefore, they're gonna make Kiddush on, uh, on grape juice, et cetera. But if you are able to, then it's better to use, uh, wine which has some strength to it. And whilst I'm at it, there is in the Rabbi Blumenkranz's guide for Pesach, a very interesting explanation why he says that the minimum alcohol, if these low, low alcohol wines, if it's about four percent, it's still considered yayin. And he bases himself on that

25:34 the str-- because you can dilute, um, uh, in the-- according to the Gemara, it can be, I think, one to five or one to six, you're allowed to... And it's still called wine. And so he makes a cheshbon of the strongest wine is about thirty-two percent, and if you'd have one to, one to six or one to five, it would be about four percent. So on that basis, he says that four percent is still considered wine, but if it's sig-significantly lower than that, it would no longer be considered wine. It'd be grape juice. But, uh, as, as yayin, properly, it, it... even, even the low alcohol, uh, wines are still considered wines. Right. We're going to go on to, uh, the following question about using an eyelash curler on Shabbos. So I've, I've made this comment before, but, uh, it's so interesting how dafka the parts of the body which have got no chayas, uh, the most dead parts of our bodies somehow get so much attention. I guess they're more tolerant than everything else, and they can't say no. Um, so you've got, so the hair and the, and the nails. So there is this shtick that we're actually learning in Gemara, in Gemara Rosh Hashanah. We're talking about whether the shofar should be a straight shofar or a yal poshut, or kama d'kofeif ma'alitezei, kama de, kama de, kama de poshit ma'alitezei. So the Avarish Tes make some people who've got straight, um, eyelashes. Well, they come up with a lamdus, a kama

27:05 de kofei ma'alitefei. It's better it should be curly than, than, so than, than flat. Okay. So you've got this shtick. It's this special curler, and it, uh, it... you press it on. Somehow you get it on the eyelashes, and it makes the eyelashes curl. And nu, beseder. It's ganeh d'nav deveilt. Fine. So now, uh, is it, is it allowed to be used on Shabbos? So the first thing is, my, my, my, my f-first concern is, does it cause hair to fall out? And if it does cause hair to fall out, so then that already is a, becomes an, uh, uh, a chashash de'eissur of pulling out a hair. Two thing I'd like to say. One is about the Ari Z"L. Is c- this is written in, in, in Seforim. The Ari Z"L once put his bea- his hand in his beard on Shabbos, and he... then he realized if he pull his out, uh, hand out, it might pull out a hair. So he left his hand there until the end of Shabbos. And the pa... He used the pasuk, "V'shomer yado m'asot kal ra'ah." He protected his, he kept his hand not to do something wrong. Secondly, I remember once being by fabrengen of the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was s-saying a maimer, in my recollection. And there was someone, you know, some people have got a nervous twitch, and they keep on plucking. In the middle of the maimer, the Rebbe stopped and he said, "Mitah nishar asin l'horot Shabbos." You're not allowed

28:27 to pluck hair Shabbos. And he continued the maimer. So pulling out a hair is a d'var Achor, it's something which is, uh, you know, one should be careful about it. So therefore, that in itself, if that is... But, you know, I don't have experience whether it does pull hair or not. I never tried this on myself. Um, shailah m'hul yilbash. And so now... But then what else is there? See, he says here that it might come under the issue of boneh. Like you have making a plait is create, giving a structure, a certain desired structure to the hair, comes in from in boneh, and that's based on a pasuk, "Va'yiven Hashem Elokim es hatzelo," um, that Hashem... And it says in Chazal, Hashem plaited Chava's hair to, before he introduced her to Adam. So there we see that making plaits is called boneh. Uh, and so, okay, that's, that's one sort, one cheshbon. And then he goes on. This is from the Piskei Teshuves in Siman Shin Gimel, which is the equivalent of Peh Gamai Ish HaYotze in Gemara Shabbos. So he says, some poskim say all the, the various forms of, of hair enhancements, for example, putting in hair rollers, uh, and so on, then they, they, that one wouldn't be allowed to use those on Shabbos because of the cheit under boneh. At any rate, if someone wants to look it up, you can look up in the Siman Shin Gimel in the Piskei Teshuves, he addresses this. But I'm, I'm, I'm... I

29:57 think the first concern is, is a more obvious one. If it does inevitably pull out hair, then that shouldn't be okay. Right. Let's move on, and that is a question. Before I go further, someone put a question on the chat. Let's respond to that. Someone... Uh, it says, "No." He knows who it was who was plucking his beard. Okay. Um, we won't publicize. Right. Uh, so now here is a question. A g- a person was Magyah. And so, b'kashah, nichnas tachas kanfei hashchinah, what about his whole kitchen? He's got utensils. Does he have to tovel? Now, this is on the assumption that he hasn't toveled his dishes yet. Does he have to now go and tovel all his dishes? I wanna just point out, because people get confused about it, the mitzvah of tevilas keilim is for metal and for glass. Metal, midat Torah, possibly. Glass is definitely midirabonon. Earthenware, wood, etc., do not need to have tevilah. We do toivel china dishes because of the glazing, right? But you would not say a bracha on them. And some poskim say you don't need to, but we-- So let's talk just coming back. So the ger has just been magayer. Now, when we buy keilim from a Goy, then we have to toivel our keilim. But he didn't buy it from a Goy. The Goy has disappeared. Now it's become a Yid instead, so he didn't acquire. He didn't buy keilim of a Goy. On the other hand, if they had a stigma as keilim

31:40 of a Goy, how did that stigma go away? So that's the dilemma. So there are poskim who do allow that he does not need to toivel his keilim. But generally, he, he... What it... The... This is from the Sefer Psakim Ushbas. This is the son-in-law of the Piskei Ushbas. This is on the Yoreh Deah. And he says, "Lamaisav should be machmir and toivel without a bracha." I just want to add one comment to this, and that is, there is a general attitude perhaps, oh, bracha she'einah me'akves, it doesn't matter, you do it without a bracha. Davka in hilchot tevilat keilim, the, uh, Shach, if I'm not mistaken, comes up, or the Taz, that if you have a dilemma whether this keilim does need to be toevelled or not, try to toivel it with another keilim which does have to. So I would say to this ger, even if there is a doubt, go to the hardware store, buy yourself a knife, or I don't know what, buy a glass, and you make a bracha on the, on the, the single keilim, which you'll buy now without any... The no sopher. Go to a hardware store or even a Jewish one, doesn't matter. From a goyish supply. Buy a, buy a kei- a new keilim, make a bracha, and have everything else in mind. And that way, you've got the ma'alot of a bracha. Just to quote my Shver alav hashalom. Machshava dibur and maase. The... You have a kavana of the mitzvah. Then you have

33:04 the dibur as the bracha, and then the maase ha'mitzvah. So that's, uh, that's the regular said. Next. So here's a shailah. Someone's asking, is he allowed to trim his mustache on... during Sefirat HaOmer. So I asked him, "Does it bother you when you eat?" And that becomes also a shailah of milchigs and fleishigs, yeah. A bit of, a bit of sour cream and then a bit of chicken soup. Not a very good shidduch. But, uh, no, he says it doesn't bother him, but it's just... It bothers him, but not it both- It doesn't get in the way of his food. 'Cause when it's zokena me'achivah sa'achilah, there's much more, uh, precedent to be, to be lenient. No, it doesn't bother him. It just doesn't bother the eating. It just it bothers him. So I looked around, and I came... I found this, this... This is from Rabbeinu Yeruchem. So he's talking about Sefirat HaOmer, and he talks about, first of all, why don't we say Shehecheyanu on Sefirat HaOmer. Ma she'ein omer zman. So he says it's not a hanu'ah. It's not a simcha like a pidyon. A Pidyon HaBen is very interesting. He says that Pidyon HaBen, you make a bracha of Shehecheyanu because hiotz michlal nefel. A child, until twenty to thirty days, is not considered so, so stable. Now, it's confirmed just the more, you know, uh, this... Since, uh, that... As if to say the bracha by Pidyon HaBen is not because of the mitzvah, but because hiotz michlal nefel. Um,

34:46 but anyway. And he says further that al pi kabbalah kind of, he doesn't say. Shemo yodin l'yodin. The co- The omer has got to do with barley. And it says, "Ve'im takriv michas bikurim." And this is referred to the omer. Ve'im is a chayav. So he says, "The se'orim, this... The barley, the barley offering relates to the korban Pesach, which is also from barley." So he's... He kind of gives us a certain negative take on this whole, um, the... How the omer has got to do with a cleansing similar to the, uh, process of the site. That's why he doesn't say Shehecheyanu. Then, and he adds the word se'orim, which means barley, has also got to do with saa'er Hashem, which means a storm from Hashem. Okay. V'lachein, because of this negative, um, shade on this period, ein konisim noshim. We do not make weddings in this period. U'megadlim sefom. And we leave the ba- the, the mustache to grow. V'af al pi sh'omru, although there's another reason given, because of the twelve thousand pairs of talmidim of Rabbi Akiva passed away. But he says there's a deeper reason. That's an, uh, that's another reason. There's a deeper reason, and that is because of, um... That's got to do with birur of... Similar to the cleansing of the site. But meanwhile, in passing, he's just said megadlim sefom. So he doesn't say you don't have haircuts. He's particularly focused that you leave the mustache to grow. So I told the fellow, if, uh... See, it

36:32 looks like he's just gonna hang out, hang in there with your mustache until, uh... Like, maybe we can be make. Okay, fine. If you're desperate. Okay, let's move on. I saw someone did put on something on the chat. No? I think... No. Let's move on. Very well. So now, someone asked me the question, and I don't have the answer. And I spent a while. So now the question is... That's question number eight. Should, uh, when, uh, on Shabbos- A person has an Aliyah for Maftir. When does the Gabbe give a Mishemicha, Mishebeirach for the Maftir? The question here is, the Maftir is connected with the Haftara. Is there any problem of creating an unnecessary pause, uh, Hefsek, between the Maftir and the Haftara? That's really the question. And I could not find any source for this. I couldn't find anyone address this, almost. So there is something about Birchas Hagoel. And we know in Taf Shin Chaf Gimel, there was someone who came, a bocher came from Eretz Israel, came to the Rebbe close to Yud Shevat, and he said Birchas Hagoel after the third Aliyah before Kaddish. And then the Rebbe made a whole discussion about this, and he says that you should leave the Hagoel for after Kaddish, so that there shouldn't be a Hefsek between the Kaddish and Kriyas Hatorah. Goel can be said earlier or later. So then what you have on the screen is from Taf Shin... Is, is actually for Taf Shin Chaf Gimel from, uh, Chelek Lamed-- Pop

38:28 volume Lamed Vav in the, uh, Toras Menachem. So when the Friediker Rebbe, as we know, in nineteen twenty-seven, Taf Res Peh Zayin, he was arrested, and then he was in, he was in Kostroma. Sorry, sorry. He was first in, in, uh, he was in prison in, in, uh, Leningrad. And then on Gimel Tammuz, he was released from the prison, from Shpalerke, and then he was taken to Kostroma. And when he came to Kostroma, he benched-- he had need to bench Goel. He had gone through... He was-- His life had been, uh, and, and, you know, his life was i-in danger. They wanted to shoot him. They saw-- He saw on the actual file. He saw the word rastrel, which means, uh, sh-shooting. That what he saw on, on his f-- cover of his file. And, uh, Baruch Hashem, he managed to avoid, to get out of that. And now he's going to be in exile in Kostroma for three years. So now he had reason to say, "Birchas Hagoel." So that at the time, the Rebbe would be oiler the Maftir, as indeed our Rebbe was also. And I think I've told this over before. Why did Lubavitcher Rebbe prefer to go to Maftir? You go other places, so the Rov goes Shelishi or Shishi. Why does Chabad is it, uh... So there was once the Bryana Rebbe, who was sitting with the Friediker Rebbe, and he asked this question. The Friediker Rebbe says he's got a Chuntres of about seventy, eighty pages on this

40:00 topic. So he says, "I want to suggest something." And so the Bryana Rebbe said that the Alter Rebbe was the youngest, because you can give it to Ha-haftarah, you can give Maftir to a, to a Kotan also, to a, to a minor. So the, the Bryana Rebbe says when I was-- That he's suggesting, um, he's suggesting that the Alter Rebbe was the youngest Talmud by the Mitteler Maggid. Because he was the youngest Talmud, therefore, they gave him Maftir. You can give the youngest one, you give him Maftir. When the Alter Rebbe comes home, out of his karches, he wanted to perpetuate, like he was getting Maftir back, by the Rebbe. When he comes home, he wants to get Maftir also because he wants to keep on living with the Rebbe even when he comes home. This is what the Bryana Rebbe said to the, to the Rebbe, to the Friediker Rebbe, and the Friediker Rebbe was really-- he liked that Hazban explanation. Coming back. So the, the Friediker Rebbe is having Maftir. So then the Rabbonim in Kostroma, who were the Rabbonim there, I don't know. We know that Yichod Vorkin was there, but I don't know who were the Rabbonim as such. When does the Rebbe bench Goel? Normally, you have an Aliyah, then you bench Goel. But here you see he had Maftir, and then right after the Maftir, he goes, uh, um, after the Aliyah is right after Haftarah, and the Haftarah connects to the Birkat HaTorah. Therefore, what do you do

41:21 with, uh, what do you do with Birkat Hagoel? So once in a while, instead of calling up the Rebbe to Maftir, call him up to Shelishi. Well, that is-- So the Rebbe in his, uh, um, style, he says-- They, they thought, "You know what? Let the Rebbe have Shelishi so that the Rabbonim shouldn't have to work too hard in learning Orah Hayyim, just give him an easy day." But then they, you know, that's korach im yissurim gdolim. It's so difficult for the Rabbonim to learn a bit of Orah Hayyim, but, um, especially after looking Nachronim. But after that fell away, so then it was the Rebbe's going to have Maftir. There were three possibilities. The Rebbe has Birkat Hagoel before having the Aliyah, or to say Birkat Hagoel after Maftir before Haftarah, or to say Birkat Hagoel be-birkat ha'toirah she-achareha. Should he say Birkat Hagoel after the whole Haftarah? That means the second option. Or to say between. And the Rebbe finishes off, "I don't remember what was actually-- what actually happened." So he just tells over the story. So what we're seeing here, the Rebbe is sensitive that there is a problem of making a pause between-- an unnecessary pause between Maftir and Haftarah. He does not give a clear answer. And as I say, I did spend a lot, a lot of time looking around in Halakhim. No one seems to be concerned about it. And so I didn't even see that you're not allowed to be Mafsik between one and the other.

42:52 So, um, yo gati velo matzosi. If someone does, uh, have a source about this. Now, actually, in the, the printed volume of Toras Menachem, they give two references. One is to Chikrei Minhogim for Rabbi Gurari, which I look there, and he doesn't really... He addresses the general thing, but he doesn't address this question. And then he gave another reference to a Sefer called Toras Chaim, printed in Bnei Brak, Tov Shin Nun. Uh, I looked up in my Otzar HaChochma. There's about thirty Sefarim called Toras Chaim, but none of them seem to match Bnei Brak Tov Shin Nun, so I'm still in the dark on that. I want to finish off with two things which came to light this week, and they are... which, things which I, I, I, uh, would resonate with myself. So, as I mentioned many times that the, the memoriam and the sichas which are, are published weekly by Halacha. They also publish letters of the Rebbe which have never been published in the Igros Kodesh, et cetera, and this is eventually all be newer volumes of Igros Kodesh. So here's a letter to someone called Stern who lived in Jerusalem, this is in Tov Shin Chaf Beis, there before Rosh Hashanah. And the person who wrote the letter to the Rebbe had asked about the word chiyusani. In Mizmor shel Chanukah, Sefer Ba'al Shem Tov, chiyusani mi yod yevarech. So now he's asking that in the Tehillat Hashem siddur, in the sh- weekday davening, it has chiyusani with the kamatz, and

44:34 in the Shabbos davening, it has chiyusani with a patach. So he was trying to sort out, um, what's happening here. So the... here's-- Let's read the Rebbe's lashon. Hanikud vechayot zeh bozeh shebesidureinu. The vowelizing. In and similar to that in the siddur. Slichim leeyot kemo shehu bepam haalef sheba-basiddur. Take, take heed. The first time it appears in the siddur, that's the one which is the most authentic. Ki lo tomid tzlichu letaken bechol makom. Didn't always m-succeed in fixing up. It should be correct all the way through the siddur. So the first one, first time it's mentioned, i-chiyusani, that in the weekday davening, that's the one you should take as authentic. And the other ones, it's just the fact that it wasn't fixed up is, you know, um, didn't get round to it kind of thing. Vehotzar al zeh betiguh ha'tikun lesiddur TeRei. This concept has been addressed in the, um, list of errata corrections to the Siddur TeRei, where it says here, this was... The Siddur TeRei was published in Tov Shin Alef. And then a year later was pre-published a four-page, um, sheet, t-four sides, and it was as if to stick it into your Torah Oh siddur. And there they write that here we're correcting only the first time where this mistake is in the siddur, and from there you'll take the cue for the rest of the times. And therefore, um, Sephir HaZimrah of Shabbos. Would... Y-You have a question, so you should follow what's in the Sephir HaZimrah of the weekday.

46:21 So this is the Rebbe's answer. So if in the sh- weekday it says chiyusani, which is... Now, now, now this is very interesting. This entry in HaYom Yom to read ychiysani or chiyusani is in HaYom Yom of Yud Alef Iyar, which is tonight. So hag sameach Chanukah protis. Now, I, I was, um, predictably curious about this. What's, what's behind this chiyusani and chiyusani? Now, on the left is what I've written in the siddur which we've recently published, and here it's noted that actually in the first print in Shklov, Tov Kof Samach Gimel and Kovna Tov Kof Ayin Vav, Tov Kof Tsadei Beis, it's written with a pasach. And m-in most editions, it's actually with a pasach. Um, but in Torah Oh siddur, it is written with a kamatz. Okay. Now, I've mentioned in the past a brilliant Sefer or set of Sefarim on Tehillim by Reb Shmuel Heber, zal zayn gezunt, uh, where he goes through the whole of Tehillim and like the Torah temimah chumash he does on the, the whole of Tehillim. It's a three-volume set. And so here he addresses the word chiyusani. Now, the word chiyusani also is in Kuf Yud Tes, Pasuk Tsadei Gimel. Lo olam lo eshkach pikudecha ki vam chiyusani. But there, the kamatz of chiyusani makes sense because it's the end of a, of, of a sentence by the pause. That makes sense. And however, here it's in the middle of a sentence. Now, then he writes, I'll come back to that in a moment. He says,

48:05 in the Seder HaTefillah, according to Nusach Ari, it's with a kamatz. So I, I just want to correct that. This is not nusach... quest of Nusach Ari. It's not according to the Ari z"l whether it's with pasach or kamatz. By the way, the Ari z"l davened with, uh, pr- a Sephardi pronunciation, so it was all pasachs. Makes no difference. So it's, it, it, he, um, I mean, Heber sees in Chabad siddur, so it's with a kamatz, so they say he's, so that's he calls Nusach Ari. But he, he refers to the Masorah Ketanah. And now I just want to address that because, of course, if I'm curious, other people are also curious. So you've got two Masorahs. Masorah means it's the... It's like the com-com-companion. Um, it's like a companion to the Tanakh telling you each word, or when it's something curious about it, which way it should be read. So that's what the Masorah is. So you've got in, in the good Tanakhs, you'll have two Masorahs. You've got Masorah Gedolah, which is more articulate, and it'll say, for example, where this pasuk comes up, how many times. Well, sorry, this word comes up how many times. Then you've got Masorah Ketanah, which is much more terse on, on just a couple of letters. That's called Masorah Ketanah. So now look, here you have in Kuf Yud Tes. So you can see I've published here from, copied here from a, a Tanakh. Masorah on... You got here this little symbol, this little, um, circle

49:40 on the chiyusani. It has the Beis, A. Oh, what he means is that the word chiyusani app-appears in Tanakh twice. One time it-with a pasach, and one time it's a kamatz. In the Tanakh, in, in chapter thirty, Mizmor shel Chanukah. So he has the, the word heliso. He says, Gimel, three to the word heliso comes up three times in Tanakh. Min sha'ol lamed stands for leso. There's never... You don't have that combination, min sha'ol,anywhere in Tanakh. It's the only place. And Lamed stands for Chaisani. Um, Chaisani is Leso. So that's a bit strange, 'cause you have Chai- you have Chaisani there also. So possibly he had Chaisani. I d- I'm not sure. But it's interesting that here it's, like, with the comets, uh, even though it's the middle of the Pasuk. So he's saying here, "But Mesoras, Mesora Ktano Keser, Kosov Beis." Now, there is a mis... there is a, a Keser, which is the, um... it's called the Taj. It's, um, the, um, Syrian codex, I think it's called. That- the oldest Tanakh, um, which exists, and that's called the Keser. The word Taj is Arabic for a crown. And he's saying that in the Mesora Ktana in Keser, in the Taj, there it says, "Beis." So here it has, without the Aleph and the... It just, it says, "Beis." Now, Chaisani comes up twice, and therefore that supports that it's Chaisani in both places. So, fascinating stuff. So that we've got here, although most Seforim have Chaisani, Meyardi Veir, in the, in

51:31 the, with the Pesach. And yet in Chabad we have a tradition to follow this Mesorah, that it's gonna be the comets. Uh, now, I'm not going to start speculating in Kabbalah what's the difference between a comet and a Pesach with their Chochma and Binah. I don't feel qualified to comment on that. Now, finally, this is our last thing for tonight, and that is the same Stern in Yerushalayim, a- about a y- a few months later, there's another letter of the Rebbe. So this was this someone by the name of Rav Tuvia Bloi, so the Zang Gesunt, uh, who lives in Yerushalayim, and he'd be training a boy to be for his, kind of towards his Bar Mitzvah. He prepared him his Bar Mitzvah D'Rasha. And the Bar Mitzvah boy, this Shmuel Stern, so he had given his Bar Mitzvah D'Rasha about the Minich Chabad, that when you take off your Tefillin, so you also remove several circuits from the arm before you take off the Shel Rosh. So when we take off our Tefillin, I can speak for, uh, myself, we take off normally the, from around the palm. Then we take off the three circuits from around the finger, and then we stop there, and then we remove the Shel Rosh. And then we take off the rest of the circuits from the hand. It's from the palm upwards to the wrist, and then to the, the arm, et cetera. And yet, he, he was talking about a Minich to remove several circuits from

53:01 the arm before taking off the Shel Rosh. So this was his Bar Mitzvah D'Rasha, and he wrote to the Rebbe about this. And in the end of the letter, you can see there's a manuscript of the, uh, the Rebbe's, uh, answer also, which is published in the Kuntres this week. Mazker B'Michatova. You mention in your letter that you are... that Min Hogenu. It is our Minich to remove before taking off the Shel Rosh, to move, remove several circuits from the Zerua, from the arm, and not only from the finger. Deloiki B'Chano Choson. Whereas when you put on the Tefillin, you do, um, till the palm. Then you put on the Shel Rosh, and then you do on the, the, on the finger. And so here's... And on the way, removal, there's a different saying there. Of removal also from the arm, not just from the hand. Ubevadai Ro Oisoma Ken Chulu. Certainly, you saw this, you heard this. This is writing to the Bar Mitzvah boy, or to his, the father of the Bar Mitzvah boy, actually. VeTal VeTchu Aschen Im Yudieinu Biprotios. I'd be very grateful if you'd give me more details where you get this tradition from. Hiloishomati Boze. Because I do not have a tradition about this. He adds in brackets, Toli Beshte HaGiosois Bikis Viarizal, that the question of how you take off your Tefillin. Do you just... Do you stop undoing the straps by your palm? Or do you undo also several circuits from the wrist, from the arm, is

54:30 dependent on different, um, versions in the writing of the Arizal, quoted in the Achronim on their, in their commentaries on the Yerahim Simin Chof Ches. So in the notes, they have a whole discussion about this. And also, they have a note that, uh, the, the po- position that, uh, you take off several circuits from your, your arm is also based upon the Ashkavta De'Rebbi. Ashkavta De'Rebbi, for those who are not familiar, is Rabbi, uh, uh, Shalom Rivkin's... Shalom Rivkin? Meshe, sorry. Meshe Rebbe, Meshe Rebbe Rivkin. He was Rosh Yeshiva in Heravadaz, but he was att- he was attending the Rebbe Rashab in his last weeks, and he later, he wrote down, um, his memoirs, w- exactly what the Rebbe Rashab did, but day by day in Nechan Hoges. I mean, he has brilliant scholarly notes about this. So he al- talks about this. Well, you know, we just go to the, we'll look at Ashkavta De'Rebbi in a s- in a second. And so he writes here, this is on page sixty-one. Don't worry about the eighty-two over there. We'll see page sixty-one. Um, somehow some more pages crept in somewhere. Um, he says, "When I was taking off his Tefillin after the..." He-- Because he took off the Shel Rosh of Rashis and then put on the Shel Rosh of Shemash Abba. So we do the following. We would take off several-- We take off the circuits from the fingers, and also the latter, uh, circuits from the arm, and the, the Rasua, the

56:03 strap, was left hanging. Then we took off the Shel Rosh, and then we took off the Sheliyat. That was a Seder, um, that- so this is, this is- so you're seeing that this was a Seder by the Rebbe Rashab, and that was what Rebbe Bloi, et cetera, and Stern and Shalai, and that was their basis of saying the minute of taking off several circuits from the arm also. So now, actually, if you don't mind, I'm going to just go through their note here and the different sources in the writings of the Ari Z"L. Because there is a, there is a source in the Ari Z"L which is saying... Sorry. Is saying that this is some, uh, Shaar HaKavonos, that the Rahav, the Chaim Vital is saying from the Ari Z"L, you should first remove the Shaliyad and then remove the Shalosh. And how can you say such a thing? When it says in Shekhina, you have to first remove the Shalosh and then you remove the Shaliyad. All Poskim say you can't remove the Shal-yad and leave yourself just with the Shalosh. That's against Halakha. So he says... So now we have two resolutions with this. When he says to remove first the Shaliyad, he means just the circuits around the finger. Then you take off the Shalosh, and that's what I was doing. That's one, one girsa. Then we have another girsa, and that's the Shaar HaKavonos Ksav Yad, quoted in Kava Chaim. Um, by the way, it's also in, uh, they say, Sefer

57:26 Ma'hasiv LeChol HaMachanus, which the Rebbe often quotes. The Gabba, the Gabba of the Mukar Cherov. Um, so he writes, "But ulai, perhaps we can res-resolve this thing of taking the Shalosh off..." Sorry, the Shaliyad before the Shalosh. So he says another girsa in the Shaar HaKavonos is to remove the Ksharim. It means the circuits around the finger, which is called the Amor. That's the middle finger. The Gamkin on the material base of Gimel Ksharim, which means in this context, circuits. Afilu Mehazroya. By having removed from the finger and from several circuits from the, from the arm, it's as if you've removed the Shaliyad before removing the Shalosh. And then you physically remove the Shalosh. So that, that's the way you can resolve. So we have here two girsas, two versions in the writing of the Ari Z"L. Rabbi Chaim Vital is quoted in both of them, whether to just remove the circuits from the fingers or remove, to remove also from the arm. And this is what the Rebbe is saying. "I'm, I'm, I'm intrigued," he says. "You're telling me that this is the Mincha Gainu, and I don't have, I don't have, uh, information about that." One last point is that the note of the editor is on this way. The Rebbe had written Mincha Gainu. On the, mmm, on the copy of this letter, which is in the Maskirus, had been written first the Mincha Chabad. That's the Mincha Chabad to remove the, this strap, this strap this way. And then the Rebbe

58:55 changed this. He, he crossed out the word Mincha Chabad and he changed it to Mincha Gainu, which I don't know the significance of that. But meanwhile, I just found both of these newly published letters fascinating, and I thought it would be, uh, appropriate to share it with you. I'm gonna wish you all a, uh, a Good Shabbos, and we should have Simchas, share Simchas with one another. And, uh, someone's asking, adding water to grape juice or wine with four percent alcohol, would that affect the Bracha deShaina? Um, very possibly, yes. Um, I don't know about grape juice. Grape juice, officially, the Kedem line is that they do not add water. It's just plain grape juice, and therefore, I don't think water would harm it. I don't know whether the low alcohol, how that works. Is it also added water? I don't... Um, I'm, I'm not sure what the fact is. If it's low alcohol because of added water, then adding water would be a problem. If the low alcohol is just it wasn't allowed to ferment, uh, it was stopped in the fermentation process, then you would be allowed to add water. So, um, Kedem sometimes before Pesach, especially, they put out advertisements, and, uh, they go through the details of whether water is added or not. Um, that's something which can be found out. But that's about Kedem. I don't know about other companies. Good. Chol Tov, and we should hear Besuras HaGeulah Bemheirah Beyameinu, Amuch.